Apple fights app makers who try to game the system

For iPhone and iPad owners looking for software in Apple’s App Store, it is easy to be overwhelmed by the hundreds of thousands of available apps. To stand out in the crowd, some app makers have apparently found ways to game the system.

On Touch Arcade, a site for iOS game developers, an independent programmer recently shared his conversation with an app promoter who promised to get his app into the store’s Top 25 most-downloaded list in exchange for $5,000. The programmer, Walter Kaman, said the promoter had hired someone to build an army of software “bots” that automatically download apps and drive up their rankings.

“As an indie developer, this totally demoralizes my passion to continue making apps for this platform, knowing that at the end of the day, all that matters is $5,000 and a bunch of bots, ” Mr. Kaman said when asked about the issue.